It’s been a long time since I posted a trip report, so here is a little one from last weekend, when the weather in central Europe was still just too great to not go on a nice trip.
The idea was to visit my father who at the time was staying at our holiday home on the shores of Lake Garda, in Italy. The plan was to take the Cardinal RG, but since it was in maintenance, I took the Piper Arrow, based at Aschaffenburg, a little southeast of Frankfurt. The planned destination was “Aviosuperfice di Bedizzole”, a very nice grass strip on the western shores of Lake Garda. It’s a strip I have previously landed at many times between 2007 and 2012.
Flying IFR over the Alps, in such weather and such aircraft, doesn’t make much sense, so VFR it was. Here is the routing that I ended up planning and flying:
So: Germany, a bit of Austria, Switzerland, and then Italy. Essentially, a straight line, with just a little kink in there in order to avoid some of the highest mountains of the Swiss Engiadina region. As you can see, it’s straight across the Stuttgart TMA, and after that, there is very little airspace to deal with, as I remain east of the Zurich TMA and essentially north and east of the Milan TMA.
After filing the VFR flightplan with the German AIS (via Skydemon) and fuelling up the aircraft, I departed Aschaffenburg at 08:50 local time, set course and climbed to FL75 initially. Up to the point where I reached the Alps, the flight was mostly on top of some low stratus/fog. There was zero wind aloft.
Crossing the airspace of Stuttgart (on course) was no problem at FL70 and soon thereafter I reached the Alps, where the fog disappeared and I entered into Austria, climbing to 9500 feet AMSL to clear the mountains ahead.
This is the beautiful Luenersee, next to Schesaplana (south of Bludenz), which is right at the border between Austria and Switzerland.
Here is a chart detail of the Swiss section of the flight:
As you can see, it was roughly via Davos and then via the Samedan (LSZS) overhead, leaving the Albula Pass to my left. Therafter, it was across the Bernina Pass into Italy. Here I am, crossing overhead Samedan aerodrome.
Passing Piz Bernina (13284 feet!).
A few minutes later, I reached the Italian border near Tirano, after which it was only about 20 more minutes to my destination. Here is a detail of the Italian section of the flight:
In the descent, here is the Bay of Saló, on Lake Garda. Conoisseurs will also recognize Isola del Garda, Isola di San Biagio and Sirmione.
Approaching Bedizzole, I closed my flightplan with Verona Approach and switched to the airfield’s CTAF frequency, 130.0. I flew overhead and then a righthand circuit for runway 04. Didn’t take any photos, so here’s one from my archives:
BUT: My dad filmed my landing 
:
The flight took only 2 hours and 5 minutes, so I landed before 11:00h local time. The runway was in great condition. It is officially 600 meters long, but effectively, it’s more like 900.
Thereafter, it was two days of sunshine, up to 24 degrees OAT and great tastes and sights.
The town of Lonato .
This one here is one of the best restaurants in the entire Lake Garda region – “Al Gambero” in Calvisano.
These are our cats.
Saló:
Here’s a glance over towards Gargnano.
Gargnano is one of the most picturesque villages surrounding Lake Garda.
Anyway, after two and a half days, it was time to head back home. The weather was still almost perfect all along the way, so no worries there. The only thing was that the winds aloft had picked up a bit in the meantime, which would later present me with quite some turbulence over the Swiss Alps. The route was almost exactly the same as on the way down. Here I am at Bedizzole airfield:
And here is the takeoff:
A few shots from the first bit of the flight, whilst still over Italy:
This is the Adamello:
Piz Bernina ahead:
After that, it got quite turbulent, but upon approaching Davos, it smoothed out again, so I was able to take a few more nice pics. Abeam Davos:
Shortly thereafter, I was back in the flatlands (relatively speaking) of southwestern Germany, followed by yet another uneventful crossing of the Stuttgart TMA.
On base leg for runway 08 at Aschaffenburg:
Flight time was 2 hours and 19 minutes. Back home safe. A great little trip!
Great report and great pics! The low sun makes the pics better too.
The wx has been super in some places; the trick is to find the time to do a trip.
It must also help to know the names of so many places. I’ve taken the photos but usually have any idea what they are called.
I wonder if this area might work for a EuroGA fly-in?
Great report, thank you! 2hrs only, wow….I can remember a 9hr trip by car!
Thanks for the report – great pictures indeed. What a privilege we all can enjoy :-)
Great trip and pictures! Thanks for sharing!
Nice report thanks. I spent a week in Salo 2 weeks ago (my nephew lives there). I drove down there from Liège, 11 hours and I was wondering which airfield would be suitable for a future trip. I had of course thought of Brescia or Verona Boscomantico (!) but I didn’t look at that option given the published length of runway.
Peter wrote:
I wonder if this area might work for a EuroGA fly-in?
Definitely, although for most of us, going to Lake Garda means crossing the Alps. But if it’s done in summer, or in September or early October, it should be fine. The most suitable airport would indeed be Verona-Boscomantico (LIPN). They have a hard runway, Avgas, a good relaxed atmosphere, enough parking (grass), a fine little restaurant on the field, etc. It’s 10 minutes by car/taxi to Verona, or 20 minutes to Peschiera / Lazise on Lake Garda. I have thought about this occasionally. I could organize the necessary things with the airport/aeroclub, come down before the fly-in starts, shuttle people around and organize a nice little program. But then again, I am very short of time, so, honestly, I am not sure I could be motivated to dedicate my time to it.
Caba wrote:
2hrs only, wow….I can remember a 9hr trip by car!
Indeed, I too remember those horrible drives. Still, the is the first time I have done this particular trip by GA. I rather take the airline nowadays (Frankfurt – Bergamo by Ryanair, and then a rental car, which costs peanuts). In fact, with Frankfurt getting better and better low cost destinations in recent years, it is getting more and more difficult justifying flying such legs by GA.
Flying by airline is, by huge margins:
-less expensive
-more comfortable
-more relaxing
-safer!
-more reliable
-less expensive
… so one really has to hugely appreciate in the element of “passion for flying” in this equation in order to keep going.
The dispatch rate of such a flight, on any random day, by light SEP, is low. You need really good weather, and for any trip longer than two or three days, you will never know what the weather will be like once you want to fly back home. Due to the terrain, this particular flight is challenging. On most random days, you would have IMC, so either icing or convectivity. And when you don’t, you often have turbulence, particularly between October and April, making the flight unsuitable for any non pilot passenger. Those 20 minutes on my flight back last sunday would have deterred any non-pilot passenger from doing this again…
Still, Bedizzole is a very good strip, especially if you have someone there who can pick you up by car.
At what altitude did you cross the alps? The weather looks nice but still it’s something I would think more than twice about doing in something with 150 hp engine.
The most suitable airport would indeed be Verona-Boscomantico (LIPN). They have a hard runway, Avgas, a good relaxed atmosphere, enough parking (grass), a fine little restaurant on the field, etc. It’s 10 minutes by car/taxi to Verona, or 20 minutes to Peschiera / Lazise on Lake Garda. I have thought about this occasionally. I could organize the necessary things with the airport/aeroclub, come down before the fly-in starts, shuttle people around and organize a nice little program. But then again, I am very short of time, so, honestly, I am not sure I could be motivated to dedicate my time to it.
It’s worth looking at.
Our fly-ins don’t involve anywhere near as much organising as the much more “hand holding” ones which others do. It is good to get the airport forewarned (make sure they have enough parking, and avgas in the tank) and sorting out a restaurant for the Saturday evening, are the main things.
We have tried to do things like a bus tour at Elba (Sep 2018) but there was almost no interest. Except for the main get-together, most people want to do different things.
Crossing the Alps doesn’t seem to stop many people coming, IF the wx is ok.
I would certainly challenge points 2 and 3 in your list of “huge margins.” Compared to, say, my Cessna 182, Ryanair – as an instance – is sheer leg-cramping hell; and with the plethora of stress-inducing obstacles before you even get on the plane (security, check-in queues, 5am starts etc), I’m not sure its comparatively relaxing either.
